SCOTUS Texas Ruling Highlights Need for Congress to Preempt State Laws, Says ITIF
WASHINGTON—Following the Supreme Court decision on Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, upholding the Texas state law that requires age verification for porn sites, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, released the following statement from Policy Analyst Alex Ambrose:
Now that the Supreme Court upheld Texas' law, more states will likely introduce their own age verification bills targeting adult websites. Congress needs to act now to prevent a patchwork of state age-verification laws.
As is the case with AI and privacy, state age verification laws set different standards for adult websites and other online services. These standards range from app-store age verification—which leaves gaps for children accessing content via web browsers—to Texas’ requirement for government-issued IDs to access sites, a process that is especially cumbersome for websites and users and excludes Americans without IDs.
Online services are increasingly caught in a tug-of-war between safeguarding adults' access to legal content and preventing children from viewing potentially harmful material. Congress is best positioned to settle this issue—not states. Congress should preempt the growing patchwork and establish a national child flag system that balances children's safety and adults' access to legal content.
Contact: Nicole Hinojosa, [email protected]
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The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute focusing on the intersection of technological innovation and public policy. Recognized by its peers in the think tank community as the global center of excellence for science and technology policy, ITIF’s mission is to formulate and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity, and progress.
